Volunteering for the RAF under a little-known scheme in the 80s was like a Boys’ Own adventure for Andy Blackmore, but an under-funded, under-resourced reboot won’t get the results Rishi Sunak wants
Left, right, left, right, left, right, left. No, that’s not the commentary track to a game of political ping-pong between Labour and the Tories, but the tune to which Rishi Sunak would have the nation’s youth marching, with his plans to reintroduce national service. The only problem is that while it sounds simply spiffing, it’s utterly out of step with reality. And I should know.
It’s not a well-known fact, but back in the early ’80s, as an extension of the existing Youth Opportunities Programme (YOP) aimed at helping young people into work, the Thatcher government ran a parallel scheme in the Armed Forces. And in 1981, at the tender age of 17, one of my most formative years was spent with the RAF.
As it happens, janitorial duties aside, I loved it. What self-respecting teenager wouldn’t have loved hanging out of helicopters on aerial assignments or working alongside a couple of squadrons of Hawk T1 trainers – getting high on the smell of scorching aviation fuel? The sight and scent of both squadrons burning and turning on the apron was utterly awe-inspiring. But that’s all in the past.
It’s almost lost in the mists of time, but back when I was cleaning their toilets, the RAF was an impressive beast. We also had a proper Army and Navy, and the mighty British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) stood as a backstop between the UK and the Warsaw Pact. Put bluntly, we had many more boots on the ground than we do today.
That simple arithmetic meant that the resources used to train and oversee us were, by comparison to the total strength of the armed forces, a drop in the ocean. I was the only ‘Yop’ in the Photographic Section, and the total number of Yops at RAF Chivenor, where I trained, could have been no more than around six teenagers.
My experience was a Boys’ Own adventure because it was well-resourced and not bogged down by political doctrine.
Sadly, this new vision of national service is based on a fantasy version of the 1950s, as seen through those distorting Tory rose-tinted glasses. In reality, the continuation of National Service after the Second World War was never popular and involved lots of bored young men marking time physically and metaphorically, waiting for the clock to run down and return to civvy street.
It’s a bit like those sunlit uplands of Brexit. Some believed the promise that after the vote, the clock would be turned back, and Britain could return to a rural idyll with whistling policemen bicycling down streets now empty of undesirables. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
We all know that any new scheme will be under-resourced, underfunded, undermanned, oversubscribed, bogged down in red tape and a minefield of inclusion issues. Yet living the dream is a bit like Marmite. When so young, and first exposed to all things military, you will either love it or hate it. And I’m assuming the idea is that not only do we want youth to love it, but also sign up and join as adults at the end of their national service.
I accept I was one of the lucky ones. I am where I am today because I was a Yop and thanks to the RAF. Not only did it teach me how to swear (a legacy that endures to this day), but it gifted me the photographic portfolio that got me into art college without the required qualifications (art college in the ’80s was like winning the lottery), and the rest, as they say, was history. With the right resources, this scheme could give young people one of the greatest gifts of all – a future. But you either do it properly or don’t do it at all.
Andy Blackmore is picture editor at City A.M.